Skara Brae: Orkney’s Neolithic Heart
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2020
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Credits:
Host - Simon Whistler
Author - Morris M.
Producer - Jennifer Da Silva
Executive Producer - Shell Harris
Business inquiries to admin@toptenz.net
Source/Further reading:
National Geographic on why Orkney is important: www.nationalgeographic.com/ma...
Good primer on the various sites: www.historyextra.com/period/p...
Discovering the Ness of Brodgar: www.theguardian.com/science/2...
Dedicated history site: www.orkneyjar.com/history/skar...
Daily life in Skara Brae: www.orkneyjar.com/history/skar...
Some details on the houses: www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/histor...
Skara Brae’s passages: www.orkneyjar.com/history/skar...
The abandonment of Skara Brae: www.orkneyjar.com/history/skar...
Skara Brae facts: www.ancient.eu/Skara_Brae/
Ness of Brodgar facts: www.ancient.eu/Ness_of_Brodgar/
Maeshowe facts: www.ancient.eu/Maeshowe/
Farmers first arrive on Orkney: www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/orkne...
Orkney trivia: www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/trivi...
Thanks to Dollar Shave Club for sponsoring. Go to DollarShaveClub.com/geographics to get your first starter set for $5. After that, full price products will ship at regular prices.
It's Canada Day today for us Canadians.
@Geographics/Simon - was expecting a rickroll with the link and felt compelled to sign my husband up because it was a legit link
@Josh C - Happy Canada Day. Might seek asylum there soon...😉
göbeklitepe, should be next.
Maybe next time you are reading an Ad, let people know that the Offer Code only works in specific parts of the world. For an Englishman living in Czechia you sure seem to forget your audience is not exclusively from North America
if your gonna have ad's in the video, how about not having them inserted too? seeing 1 ad after another is off putting. Been to Skara Brae , very cool, I enjoyed my day trip to Orkney.
I visited Skara brae on a bright, cold, winters day. Being the only two visitors, the guide allowed my niece and I to wander around the dwellings and opened a cover to explain the sewage system. Each house did, indeed, have an indoor toilet, linked by a stone lined underfloor culvert system. A stream or spring fed water through the culvert providing a constant 'flush'.
Wow!!
Damn straight that learning about the small stuff in history is just as inspiring as learning about the important places and monuments. Monuments make us dream. Villages like Skara Brae tell us what life really was like.
Perhaps because it seems that Skara Brae was both?
You should check out an archaeological book called 'In Small Things Forgotten' you will love it.
1:45 - Chapter 1 - The ancient revolution
5:30 - Chapter 2 - Into the past
8:40 - Mid roll ads
10:10 - Chapter 3 - Ancient life , ancient death
13:10 - Chapter 4 - Before the pyramides
16:35 - Chapter 5 - The end of days
19:45 - Chapter 6 - Rediscovery
When I went to Skara Brae the guide told us that what remains might be a fraction of the original settlement, erosion from the sea having taken the rest. The guide also mentioned a possible reason for the settlements abandonment also being erosion,with the sea breaching the settlements water supply.
My family is from the Island of Sanday in Orkney, it's a beautiful place. Sometimes fierce winter storms erode the banks and reveal mysterious stone age ruins, there was also a Viking boat burial discovered at the end of the last century.
Excellent video as usual Simon.
I bought an Ola Gorie necklace based on the whalebone plaque found in that boat burial and saw the plaque in the Kirkwall museum. One of my favorite souvenirs from that trip-the other is the fridge magnet I bought at Skara Brae of the house dresser.
i would like to see photos of those "mysterious stone are ruins". maybe you can make videorecordings of those ancient ruins.
I live 20 minutes away on the island, and its amazing.
Pretty big island, I suppose, then?
What an awesome place to live. I would spend all of my time searching for additional ruins.
@crazy silly I am curious as well.. tell us more please! Now I have to google it lol.
Orkney had one of the most surprising accents I've found in Scotland.
How are you guys going up there in the pandemic? I'm down in Edinburgh (you probably hate Edinburgh)
@crazy silly My parents house was a few miles away. Any time I had friends from college etc come up, this was one of the places we went. The previous language of Orkney was Norse. Gaelic has never been spoken there. As children, if we wanted to wind up our grandfather we would just call him Scottish!
As far as I can tell, "Skerrabra" was the name for the mound(s) it was all under. That's all I can see from Googling it too.
@@amandabromell9660 love Edinburgh visit you guys from orkney once a year
Skara Brae remains one of my favorite places. I have been fortunate to travel widely in Europe and I seek out the really old places. I live in the Puget Sound area of Washington State where things are considered historic if they are 100 years old, so something as ancient as Skara Brae is particularly stunning to me. Time your visit to the morning before the first tour buses arrive and you can get a feeling of what the place may have been like 5000 years ago. It is quiet and your imagination can run freely. It was serendipity that the village was not discovered until the 1800s, as the Vikings roamed freely through the Orkneys and found most of the other neolithic sites, leaving graffiti and carrying off anything of value. They did not find Skara Brae.
I went there several years ago. Orkney is a gorgeous place. Feels like every other field has a barrow or a standing stone in it.
read somewhere that you only have to plant a spade into the ground anywhere in Orkney to find archaeology. Would love to visit there - having moved out of London, I'm at least a couple of hundred miles closer to it now!
so not like Seattle then?
@@franl155
It is well worth a visit. Go in the summer and you will be going back year after year. It is a special place.
@@johnbinnie5697 - I'd go in summer - the first few times. Then I'd go in winter, to see if i could stand living there all year round - too many people buy a house somewhere because they've spent a summer there, and then are surprised by the other seasons!
@Jeff Bridger - lol I hear you! I'll have to polish the rose tint off my specs. not really surprising that the kids turn to one of the few available means of entertainment.
Add in that you must get some terrific storms and winds, and being so far north, ,much less daylight in winter ...
Strange to think that Orkney was once a cultural hub - but that was when civilisation came from the north.
I visited there in 2008 and to this day Orkney is still one of my favourite places ever. It genuinely feels magical, the feeling of awe I got looking at Skara Brae and other nearby sites was like nothing else. Loved the video, it brought back great memories, I hope I can make it back one day.
The neolithic ruins of Malta would be a good topic, Hagar Qim was around 3600BC or something like that. Lots of unique stuff about Malta...
YES. Simon should cover Malta, such an interesting island.
It would be good
Malta is multiple islands of history. With many different cultures that controlled it at different periods of time
As a Maltese I'd be thankful for the representation.
I've visited it, it was built almost a thousand years before stone henge.
However scara is contemporary, this according to several doctorate qualified archaeologists that I know shows that cultural exchange was happening even back then and that ancient man were proficient sea fairers.
Interestingly, pottery and beads with origins in southern Europe have been found at scara, proving my former point.
The ancient people's of our world were amazing and ingenious and all in all absolutely fascinating.
Another interesting site is carnac, what is thought to be a processional way of similar age, with smaller stones on average than stone henge but on an enormous scale.
Simon: "It's time to talk about Orkney's megastructures"
*Rock and roll starts playing*
I recall a strange feeling of connection looking at amazingly domestic interiors of skara brae. The beds the dresser the fire pit. The comfyness struck me more than anything. Very human.
I liked that more than the Great Ring at brodgar. Though it was blowing horizontal rain the day I was their and that may have tinged my view. Midsummer day 8 degrees.
Orkney has to have the highest sights to see ratio in a small(ish) area than just about anywhere. Not only the ancient stuff there's the Italian chapel (literally made from trash), scapa flow, all the Viking stuff, the highland park distillery and so on. You can barely throw a stick without hitting some interesting thing. Though that's frowned on.
Earth-sheltered design is always warmer and cozier than shelter built above grade. These were some advanced builders.
Went to Orkney on a day trip, such an interesting place, so many neolithic places, there's the Churchill barriers, you can see scuttled ships from WW1 & 2 , a gorgeous tiny Italian chapel made by POWs. theres one tiny clump of trees they call the wood. I went 2019 on the last day the ferry went from John O'Groats to the island. it was mid 20s C - loved it.
All the ships were from W.Wl to my memory. I was 19 and went aboard them. Stupid kid, eh?
Great. Hope you cherish the memory.
Exciting to see a place I've visited. (Sad that the graffiti at one of the tombs wasn't mentioned - Vikings wrote the equivalent of "Leif and Erik did Helga here". Some things never change.
Wait, seriously? Now I’ve got some research to do!
I agree, that was the only thing missing. I’ve been to all of the sites mentioned, and I adore the Viking graffiti. It’s so funny.
Leah Fairs
When Simon said they were peaceful and no evidence for weapons were ever found, the first thing I thought was “How did that pacifism work out when the Viking Longboats showed up? Did you just throw your daughters at them and hope they row away?” 🤣
is maeshowe that has the viking graffiti not skara brae
Neg Ative - because the vikings were there LOOOOOOONG after skats brae was left to the sand ;)
One of the best experiences of my life was doing a tour of Skara Brae at twilight. Sensational with the sun setting into the Bay of Skail.
Tomb of Eagles should have got a mention though
"The fantastically grumpy looking"
Nah Simon, that's just how we Scots usually look
Jedi, when I was there in 63 I referred to my host as Scottish. I almost had my head in my hands! "We are Norse!". Ouch!
Well we are a grumpy lot
@@pakde8002 I'm American, mother is from Sunderland England and my fathers side is from Dublin. I met a police officer with the same last name as me and I said " We might be related, is your family from Dublin?" He was offended and said "Hell no im Scottish and so are you" both of us born and raised in the states but I stood there and argued with a police officer for 10 minutes. It got heated. But in the end we shook hands. Even Americans can be passionate about our ancestors land that we've never even set foot on.
Im scottish and ive acctully been too that location. I really thank you for showing some of are old monuments.
Wife and I visited Orkney last year, and of course, saw Skara Brae. Really one of my favorite parts of our Scotland vacay.
As an American archaeologist I loved 😍 this video! Great job my Boy with the Blaze!
If you don’t mind my asking, what is your area of expertise? I ask because I nearly became an archeologist myself. My family owned a huge plot of useless land down on the Pecos River in far South Texas directly across the road from the building where Judge Roy Bean held court proceedings (To refer to it as a courthouse would not be very accurate as I believe it was a frontier general store at the time). We used this area as a river camp for hunting, fishing, riding the extensive but shallow rapids and just plain being on vacation.
One of the activities we would enjoy was digging in any one of five small caves that were last occupied by a tribe of Native Americans (I truly wish I knew which tribe but I do not). They each had ash black roofs from the central fire pits. There was a primitive cave painting in the largest, high cave that depicted a successful deer hunt that was still pretty visible, however faint, after hundreds of years (almost no annual rainfall and it’s location well far back from the entrance, is my guess?). We had a serviceable kit for archeological digging and sifting that we kept there, so our entire family would spend whole summer days digging for arrowheads and flint tools. We have an entire room at our ranch that houses a circular staircase and around that are several display cases my grandparents had custom made to house all of the artifacts we collected. Aside from probably roughly 100 arrowheads ranging from tiny points used for fishing and hunting birds all the way up to a nearly 8” long spear point used for defense from the local mountain lions, I presume. Those mountain lions are extremely aggressive in such an area where meat is not as abundant. Some of the most interesting finds were a nearly complete, yet animal chewed, moccasin and the nearly complete remains of papoose used to carry a baby while foraging or gathering water.
As I said, it nearly turned me into an archeologist (it didn’t hurt that the first two Indiana Jones movies were current during our ownership and I was a pretty big fan of his and the Han Solo character from SW). I suspect you would have loved to be at such a fruitful dig. Once we determined at what depth to dig, we found something, be it a flint tool or an arrowhead, daily as best I can remember.
@@negativeindustrial that's very interesting!
Pretty Civil War military forts in Colorado, cultural anthropology in Nicaragua, and some other various studies. That's awesome BTW about your personal archaeological stories! When I was 13, my dad got me my first metal detector and I discovered a homestead site from the 1920s on our property! I grew up in central Oklahoma on 270 acres of land. Also, I have still in my possession 2 coconuts I found out here in 1996 & 97.
Go to RUclips and type in 'Manos Locos Productions Nicaragua Adams State University' to see my first trip to Nicaragua. I was on a university project to study the effects of Globalization on Nicaraguan society and got to see some AMAZING Mayan artifacts!
@@jamesc9770
We probably have similar laws but it was happening on our private land so the government can not trespass.
The site was eventually taken over by a group from Texas A&M University when they heard of what we were finding. I believe there are still students and archeologists digging there today. I know that there is a debate as to the age of the site. One group believes it is thousands of years old. I wish I knew more.
One of your best videos, shame more people haven't watched it.
I knew my family left Scotland for the Appalachian Mountains in America in the 1600s. When I had my DNA analyzed. I was thrilled to find links to Skara Brea. I am descended from people who lived in the Highlands, and islands. Big Viking connections, including Iceland. I'm always thrilled to find information on their lives. Since it's unlikely I'll ever get to visit, Thanks for taking me there in my mind.
Oh, I loved this! I've long been fascinated by Orkney, and I learned a lot today. Thanks for not giving it the plural, which I've read they hate It being referred to as "the Orkneys".
And thanks for that attempt to put the timespan into context - I say "attempt" because most minds would boggle at just how long it's been.
It's only "remote" from our modern perspective, London-based, or south-of-England based - it's closer to Norway than it is to London.
Please do more of this kind of vid
As someone from Orkney, yes we do not like being referred to as "the Orkneys"
Do give a thought to the blind summits.
I'm not saying it was Hobbits....
But it was Hobbits.
So, Orkney = Shire?
This actually is where Tolkien got some of the inspiration for Hobbits from.
Georgio needs to stay away from the shire...
Titangel, now Skara Brae! Good job!
Without French knights
The Orkney Islands are worth a visit. So much to see, Stone, Bronze and Iron ages, Viking, WWII, and more. Tomb of the Eagles is haunting, Skara Brae is wondrous, and the Ring of Brodgar beats Stonehenge.
I have been waiting for this one. Cheers!
Was it complete in your opinion? Is there much need for further research? I ask because I found it very interesting but idk if it’s worth further reading.
Cheers
The Dollar Shave sponsorship?
Tom Bystander
Sure we do. Our country is large. “Cheers” is used in a few places for more than just a alcohol toast.
@@negativeindustrial I'd say Göbekli Tepe is a more interesting read.
There's a lot of contention about whether it could have been built by Hunter gatherers or if it indicates that a somewhat advanced civilization existed over 10000 yrs ago. .
You can really go down a rabbit hole on that one
@Tom Bystander Sam Malone may disagree. And I am from a country at the bottom of the worlds biggest Pond.
Interesting how they and the people of gobekli tepe buried their structures
I was thinking the same thing!! Makes you wonder if something happened all these people saw as an omen
They put their houses partially or entirely underground because it works great as insulation making your house cooler in the summer and warmer in winter since when you get about 2ft down underground the temperature barely changes. It was common from when we first started building permanent structures into the middle ages when above ground homes became more standard as firewood became easier to harvest and technology advanced. If you abandoned an underground home chances are it will just get buried naturally, if it's a wooden building it will rot away but if its stone it will stick around
@@arthas640 we are talking about the temple Simon said they destroyed and buried intentionally Gobekli Tepe was also a temple of some kind that was intentionally buried
I've been to Scara Brae. It is stunning, and it's definitely worth visiting.
Hi Simon great episode, love your descriptions. Any chance you could do a episode either çatalhöyük or Göbekli Tepe? Thanks again
I definitely second this.
This was one of your best videos. I sensed you all connected with the subject more than usual.
I remember visiting Skara Brae as a child .... while playing Ultima IV!
I used to steal from people there in Ultima Online >:D
I remember visiting Skara Brae - in The Bard's Tale.
Simon will you do a video on Tomb of the Eagles and Mae's Howe? Neolithic orkney is packed with cool stuff!
One of your most interesting, best videos ever. Skara Brae is one of the places I would have loved to have gotten to excavate and study. Personally, I don't have a lot of trouble looking back 43 centuries to the Neolithic as most of my archeology education was paleolithic in nature. The older the better. Also, while kings, monarchs, and nobility is fascinating, most of us would have been Ordinary People and it is their lives that fascinates me more than anything. How did they live? How did they clothe themselves, what did they cook? What did they believe? Those are the questions that I ponder and wonder about. Ancient history, the Stone Age, and earlier, are where my biggest interests lie. Probably why I learned to make hand axes out of obsidian many years ago. Why obsidian? It's what I had available. I would love to get to work with flint or chert.
I love all of Simon’s channels. Really informative and accessible, great for lunchtime watching
Truly awe-inspiring!
I am planning to visit Orkney this summer making my one decade dream to a reality! I watched this video for a preparation of the trip and it made me even more excited about the visit! Thank you so much for the informative explanation on!
Has anyone watched this with the subtitles on?? Hilarious bit in the section when Simon is talking about henges. "Ateast Scotland still has Irn Bru" 🤣
Awesome video!
Suggestion - Halifax Explosion would be a good Geographics subject :)
Brennan Wilkie Agreed.🇨🇦
Another fascinating video, Simon.
Thank you.
This is amazing, I'm Scottish born and bred and have never heard of this truly fascinating!!
What? You are Scottish and you have never heard of Skara Brae on Orkney? It is one of our most popular tourist attractions and a world heritage site. Sorry, I'm not meaning to sound like a dick but I'm Scottish and it is really really really famous. You had at least heard that Orkney is famous for hundreds of neolithic sites? Like the largest concentration on earth.
I can understand not knowing about the temple as they only uncovered it a few years ago. The problem is that they can only work on these sites in the summer and on good days.
Have you heard of Scottish Brochs? 2000 years old iron age towers that were the tallest buildings in Britain when built?
They are very cool. No one knows who built them all. There were around 800 in total. Only a few left now.
Anyone watching this who is from/lives in Orkney? I am/do.
@Jeff Bridger Eh, you know you can leave if you want to ye?
I love Geographics and this in my favorite video so far. It's insane to think that this incredibly fascinating discovery is almost completely unknown in the wider public consciousness.
This might be the best one yet...
Skara brae was an island town in Ultima IV. Apple II+ version was my favorite
I've been to Skara Brae. Very cool site and you did it justice. But now, how about a Megaprojects on all the Orkadian megastructures?
Next up, Göbekli Tepe please
Thank you for doing videos like this!
Learn something new everyday from you. Thank you!
You amaze me Simon. I love your subject taste. Fantastic video❣️
Skara Brae, Göbekli Tepe, what other unbelievably ancient and complex ruins are from the dawn of time? That would be a great video, showing our most ancient ruins and tying them together. We never get the whole world picture, just regional.
Genuinely love this channel.
Thanks for this one. I first went to Orkney when I was seventeen, and I've been enchanted by it ever since. This was a great short history, and it made me laugh as well.
Cheers!
... and thank you for another wonderfully detailed program.
You should do a video on the Megaliths of Carnac. Recent findings in astronomy and geometry indicate it was an amazing place of Neolithic science AND its location is specifically linked to the Orkney Islands and Silbury Hill near Stonehenge. Check out the videos online by Howard Crowhurst. NOW I know why the ancient scientists built on Orkney Island - it was due to its specific latitude and granite subsurface. Always seemed a bit harsh for a neolithic settlement, but there was a scientific/astrological reason.
Yes!! I requested this! woo. Thank you.
Fascinating! Really well done!
Thanks for bringing back fond memories .... used to call Orkney home for about 10 years
only thing ... it is Maes Howe ... two words not one
A night for binging on Scottish fare. Wonderful addition Simon. Thank you.
We have a very similar Settlement in Shetland called Jarlshof, well worth a visit.
Amazing. Mind blowing. If this was built, something came before, and before that, and before... Thanks again
Went on a day long bus tour to Orkney. Skara Brae is truly stunning.
this is so cool! i recently took an archaeology class where we examined skara brae and other sites around western europe!
That was wonderful, thank you.
Loved it thank you
Absolutely amazing
I like it when Simon get;s serious, yes, he still has his sarcasm woven in, but he is an excellent teacher!
We visited Orkney in 2018 and we were able to visit Skara Brae in the time when they do evening tours going into the village itself. There is something a lot more atmospheric about being in there, in those tunnels, than looking at them from above. Also at the time (June-July) the dig at the Ness of Brodger is open and you can go and see what the archaeologists have found this year.
I've been here, but before I visited I'd never heard of the ruins before. I didn't go to see them either since I didn't know about them. I just wanted to go see what's on the Orkney islands. It's a very beautiful place.
Excelent doc. Thank you.
Awesome Simon !!!!
Simon: "While 43 centuries is a stupidly long time it's still just the blink of an eye to eternity"
Me: Dang Simon getting philosophical on us now!
Wonderfully enlightening and fascinating episode! I hope that you'll do something similar someday about Çatal Höyük, the Neolithic city in Turkey.
This video was amazing as expected from this channel :)
A small thing but I would've liked to see the writing team's monkeys throwing darts :D
This really moved me 😊
So... they out did ancient egypt?.. Gobekli Tepe is faaaaar older!
Scotland wasn't habitable when Gobekli Tepe was founded, it was covered in ice...
@@luked6385 we have a massive chunk of missing ancient history!
@@murder13love I, too, have seen that Joe Rogan podcast.
@@luked6385 Didnt realise he covered it!
Older, yes. More beautiful? Most certainly not.
Brilliant, thanks.
Whenever I think one of these is particularly well-written, it says it’s by “Morris M”. Awesome job!
Skara Brae! I had a book about this place while I was growing up. Always wanted to visit! Thank you for doing a video on it!
Please visit one day. It is absolutely incredible. Well worth the trip from wherever you are.
I read about it as a child and visited it in my 50s. Well worth the wait and did not disappoint. Well worth a visit as are the orkneys themselves. I encourage you to do so.
Take stout shoes and a warm wind proof coat. Even in midsummer.
More please!
Love this! I really must visit one day
12:50 Big up to whoever wrote the subtitles. YOU'LL NEVER TAKE OUR IRN-BRU
As someone from orkney myself its fun to see someone talk about the island
Thank you for the information as I didn’t know about the history!
Verry well done
I grew up in Orkney!
I like how you ended this episode like it were The Inner Light, from Star Trek, TNG. Great presentation. I like your work.
aahh Neolithic Orkney was one of my favourite parts of my archaeology course :’)
i love these ancient site videos.
Been there a couple of times, defo worth the visit.
Thank you for making this video! I asked for this topic in the Newgrange comments two weeks ago, I don’t know if this inspired the video topic or not, but I’ll pretend that it did :)
I LOVE the Orkney Islands, so much history, and such a fantastic place! Loved the video!
My husband and I watched the video to the end like absolute legends to get Simon that sweet, sweet watch time :) . Business Blaze reference!!
I asked for it too (in the newgrange and Stonehenge ones) I was so excited when I opened RUclips this morning.
LOVE IT THANK U
Bard's Tale, anyone? Yeah, I'm that old...yeesh.
@victor bruun damn, hold his hand and feed him some hot dogs while you're at it.
Bard’s Tale is what brought me to this video. Great game! I beat Mangar.
Young whipper snapper.
Ultima online; Skara Brae was one of the islands if I remember.
victor bruun - Gotterdamurung FTW!
Was waiting for this.
Fascinating.
Beautiful islands great wee holiday, recommended to everyone, Scotland in miniature!
Yay! Archeology on Geographics. Just needs a bit more Phil Aaarrrding. ;)
This dude has as many channels as regular RUclipsrs have videos. Everyday one pops up in my feed. 😅
Ah, Skara Brae. One of my favorite towns. Not too quiet, not too busy. With a stable, conveniently located next to the bank where I would sometimes stand and practice my spells.
Thanks for doing a show on my home!
Like button smashed..